BRIT-SICILIAN-INDIAN SHEPHERD'S PIE

Long ago, I used to make the great Madhur Jaffrey's "A Kind of Shepherd's Pie" from her 1994 Madhur Jaffrey's Cookbook - Food for Family and Friends. However, due to the difficulty of obtaining minced lamb here and despite having tried the recipe a couple of times with minced beef, in the end I stopped making it. 

But in colder weather comfort food calls so a few weeks ago I decided to revive the recipe using the ingredients I can easily get here, so it's become a bit British, a bit Sicilian and a bit Indian.  I've kept Madhur's idea of a grilled aubergine base and I think this makes it quite Sicilian too. You can use frozen grilled aubergines, reconstituted as directed on the pack, or just slice an aubergine lengthwise and cook the slices on a tray lined with baking parchment in the oven for 10 minutes. The latter is a tip I picked up from Antonella Clerici and I find that the cooked slices freeze well. The other Sicilian touches are the use of sweet Sicilian carrots, green [French] beans and passata. The Indian part is, of course, the use of spices, though there's another nod to Sicily with the use of cinnamon.

Here's the recipe:

Brit-Sicilian-Indian Shepherd's Pie

1 aubergine, sliced and cooked as above [or use frozen grilled aubergine slices]
100 gr green beans, cooked in boiling water until tender, then drained and cut into small pieces
2 carrots, peeled and chopped
300 gr mushrooms, sliced
1 white onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
500 gr mixed minced meat [a mixture of beef and pork if you are in Italy but you can use all beef or lamb]
2 goodly-sized knobs ginger, peeled and finely chopped
cinnamon
1 kg potatoes, peeled and cut into chunks
c. 125 gr butter, softened plus a little extra
200 gr passata, made up to 300 gr with water
4 tablesp olive oil
1 tablesp flour
Handful fresh sage leaves, chopped

Arrange the aubergine slices in a large, fairly deep Pyrex or ceramic roasting dish.

Cook the onion and garlic in the oil until softened, then add the carrot slices and soften these too. Add the meat and cook, stirring, until browned.

Add the beans, mushrooms, half the ginger, a little cinnamon and most of the chopped sage and stir for a couple of minutes.

Add the passata mixture and flour, season and stir well.

Turn the heat down and let the mixture simmer for 20 mins.

Meanwhile, cook the potatoes in boiling water till soft but not disintegrating.

Mix the butter with the rest of the sage leaves, a little more cinnamon and the rest of the ginger. Use this to mash the potatoes.

Now pour the mixture in the pan on top of the aubergines and spoon the mash over. Smooth the top with a palette knife. Add a few small knobs of butter and a final sprinkling of cinnamon.

Cook in the oven at 180° C for 15 mins.

Garnish with some whole sage leaves if you wish.

Buon appetito.

PORK CHOPS WITH ZUCCHINI

Last weekend, I hit upon the idea of combining good tomato sauce and Dijon-style mustard to cook with pork and this dish worked so well I'll be making it again tomorrow!

Thinly slice 6 courgettes and arrange them in a lightly oiled ceramic or Pyrex roasting dish. Finely chop two red onions and spread them over the courgettes. Season. 

Now brown 8 boneless pork chops - thin ones, like escalopes - in 3 tablesp olive oil. Drain them on kitchen paper, then arrange on top of the courgettes and onions. Add a handful of rinsed and drained salted capers.

Mix 330 g homemade tomato sauce or bought passata with a dessertspoon of Dijon-style mustard, some seasoning, a little paprika and a little dried oregano.. Mix well and pour over the chops.

Cover with foil and cook at 180 C for one hour.

Serves 4.

MAY DAY PIZZA

I am calling this my "May Day Pizza" because I invented it on this day but you can call it "Red onion and aubergine pizza" if you like!

First of all, make your pizza base: I guess we all have a favourite pizza base recipe and mine is in Claudia Roden's Mediterranean Cookery. I only use half the quantity, though.

While the dough is rising, slice 2 large red onions thinly and soak the slices in cold water for about 15 mins. Drain the slices well and pat them dry with kitchen paper. Then you need to cook them very slowly, in a heavy pan with the lid on, with 85 gr unsalted butter and some seasoning. This will also take about 15 mins. Stir them from time to time.

Rinse 6 - 8 slices aubergine preserved in oil, rinse them and drain again. Pat dry with kitchen paper.

When the pizza base has risen - after about 1 hour - roll it out into a rectangular shape on a floured board. Pull it a bit with your hands to get it the right shape for a baking tray. Put it on a lightly oiled baking tray and spread the contents of a 400 gr tin tomato pulp on it. [You could use a thick passata if you cannot get this.] Put the aubergine slices on top of this, then 200 gr mozzarella. [In Italy we can buy it already chopped up for pizza.] Lift the onions out of the saucepan with a slotted spoon and spread them over the top. Finally, add a few sprigs of fresh rosemary.

Cook the pizza at 180 - 200 C for 25 mins.  Add a few more fresh rosemary sprigs to serve.

Buon appetito.

Incidentally, I have read that Claudia Roden's The Food of Italy has been updated and republished to celebrate its 25th anniversary. Congratulations to one of my favourite cookery writers!

FEVER SOUP

Red onion soup made with brodo [stock] is an old Italian cure for colds and flu and when I was feeling poorly last week I knew that onion soup was just what I needed. I didn't have any red onions and lacked the energy to go and get some but I did have some white ones. I also wasn't really in a brodo frame of mind, so I decided to concoct my own onion soup using passata. [I like the rustica type that is a bit thicker]. Here's what I did:

For 1 - 2 people thinly slice 6 medium white onions and chop 2 cloves garlic, then soften them very slowly, in a heavy pan, in 55 gr butter and 1 tablesp olive oil.  This will take about 15 mins.

Now, what's this lovely stuff?

It's coarse seasalt flavoured with lemon zest and mint and I found it in Catania at Christmas. I've been dying to use it so in some went!  You can of course just add normal seasalt, some grated lemon zest and chopped herbs of your choice. Add a good grinding of mixed peppercorns, too.

Now add 680 gr passata or homemade tomato sauce. Simmer, stirring, for about 20 mins.

To serve the soup you can put buttered toast in the bottom of the bowl if you like, but I just added some small squares of ordinary bread as it reminds me of the soups I ate as a child. Don't we all need to think of being cossetted when we're unwell?

I felt heaps better the next day. It could have been the medication the doctor gave me but I'm convinced it was the soup!

WARM RICE SALAD

The other evening I decided I just had to have a warm rice salad to go with my butcher's excellent spiedini [kebabs]. The shops being closed, I had to use what was in the store cupboard and [newly working] freezer, so here's what I did:

Cook 500 gr long-grain rice - in Italy we can get special salad rice - in salted water for the time indicated on the pack. If this time is no longer than 10 minutes, chuck 200 gr frozen peas right in there with the rice. If the time indicated is longer - and please note it's the time from when the water comes to the boil - throw the peas in for the last ten mins.

While the rice and peas are cooking, chop a large red onion and a couple of peppers from a jar of grilled peppers in oil. Halve some datterini or cherry tomatoes and tear up a handful of basil leaves.

When the rice and peas are done, strain them and transfer to a serving dish. Mix in the other vegetables and basil and season well. Stir in 1 tablesp olive oil and serve.

Serves 4 generously. 

Buon appetito.

AND NOW, FROM CALABRIA.....

I'm having a very oniony week for not only are the large, white Giarratana onions in season, but it is also time for the famous red onions of Tropea to make their appearance. These onions are grown around the beach resort town of Tropea in Vibo Valentia Province and particularly between Briatico and Capo Vaticano.  

The soil of the area makes the onions sweet and they contain vitamins C and E, iron, iodine, zinc and magnesium. A few years ago it was discovered that they also contain nitric oxide, a component of that pill for the gentlemen.  Sweets for your sweetie?

BAKED ONIONS WITH APRICOT RAGU

Baked, stuffed onions are a favourite in Sicily during the Giarratana onion season and I used the largest ones I could find for this recipe.  The ragù with dried apricots and almonds is my own invention because I wanted to do something different, so all you Sicilians who are shocked by the mix of "sweet and savoury" had better look away now!

First, clean, trim and peel 6 large, flattish onions and then put them in simmering, salted water for 20 minutes or until tender but not falling apart.  Lift them out of the pan with a slotted spoon and let them dry on kitchen paper on a plate.

Heat the oven to 170 C while you make the ragù.  These quantities are enough to fill the 6 large onions and to have some ragù left to put around them:

4 tablesp olive oil + extra for drizzling
200 gr mixed, minced meat [typically pork and beef in Sicily]
200 gr pasta di salame [sausage mince]
125 gr mushrooms, chopped
6 fresh mint leaves, chopped
125 ml white wine
100 gr chopped almonds
100 gr dried apricots, chopped
coarse seasalt and black pepper
mint leaves to garnish

Brown all the meat in the 4 tablesp olive oil and add the mushrooms. Stir well, then add the wine, chopped almonds, chopped mint and apricots. Season the mixture, then turn down the heat and simmer for about 25 mins.

Meanwhile, scoop out the centre of the onions as best you can. [I used a small knife and a teaspoon.] Oil a glass or ceramic oven dish and place the onions in it. Now fill them with the ragù and spoon the remaining ragù around them. Drizzle more olive oil over the contents of the dish and bake for about 30 mins. Garnish with more mint leaves.

Buon appetito!

MEDITERRANEAN COBBLER

No, not a Modican shoe repairer but my name for a new dish I've invented!  The inspiration for this dish is the recipe for "Syrian Chicken" in Diane Seed's Top 100 Mediterranean Dishes, of which I think this may be an updated edition.

Here's how I've Italianised the dish:

4 - 5 loaves Sicilian pane arabo or other flattish bread
0.75 kg chicken breast fillets
1 medium white onion
2 Sicilian or unwaxed lemons
1 jar grilled peppers
6 tablesp olive oil
c. 1 tablesp dried oregano
seasalt and freshly ground black pepper

Pre-heat the oven to 180 C and lightly oil a large, rectangular Pyrex-type dish.
Cut half the loaves in half lengthwise and line the bottom of the dish with them, crusty side down.
Slice the onion into rings and lay these on top of the bread.
Slice the lemons as thinly as you can and lay the slices of one of them on top of the onions.
Season with salt, pepper and some dried oregano.
Now lay all the chicken pieces on top of the lemons and season them in the same way.
Next, cover the chicken with the [not too enthusiastically] drained peppers and the slices of the other lemon.
Drizzle over half the olive oil.
Cover everything with the rest of the bread, sliced to more or less fit the dish, crusty side up.
Drizzle over the rest of the olive oil, cover the dish with foil and cook for 50 mins.
When the dish is ready, the bread will be impregnated with the aromatic juices and the chicken will be meltingly tender.

Enjoy.

LEMON CHICKEN WITH ONIONS AND POTATOES

For those of you in Italy, this recipe is from the Conad Supermarket Chain's November edition of their free magazine, Bene Insieme.  I've altered the recipe slightly so will give my version here: 

First of all, oil the base of a deep, oval roasting dish well.  Cut 3 large potatoes into rounds - as you all know, I refuse to peel them - and arrange them in the dish. Then cut 3 medium onions into rounds - the recipe says white ones but I used a mixture of white and red - and add to the dish.  Cut 2 lemons into rounds and squeeze another while you're at it.  Of course, I am convinced that this works so well because of the flavour of Sicilian lemons but if you are in the UK, try to get unwaxed ones.  Now put 2 fresh bay leaves into the cavity of your chicken and add a bunch of fresh herbs such as rosemary,sage, thyme, basil, mint and oregano.  Don't bother chopping the herbs - that's for wimps!  Now stuff in as many of the lemon slices as you can, too.  Pour a little olive oil into the cavity, then sit the chicken on top of the vegetables in the dish.  Pour the lemon juice over the chicken and put any remaining lemon slices around and on top of it.  In fact, I cut up another lemon to do this.  I put some more sprigs of rosemary around the chicken, too, just because I like it that way.  Season to taste and cook the chicken at 200 C for 50 minutes, basting now and then. 

Breathe in  the aroma and then serve four lucky people.

RISOTTO WITH SAUSAGE AND RED ONION SAUCE

I adapted this from a recipe in October's Cucinare bene magazine:

Cook 300 gr risotto rice for the length of time stated on the pack in a large pan of water with a little oil, salt and a crushed vegetable stock cube.  Drain it and put the rice into a lightly oiled mould [or 6 individual moulds if you prefer].  Put the mould in an oven heated to 180 C while you prepare the sauce [for no longer than 10 mins].

Chop a red onion and a clove of garlic and cook them in 2 tablesp olive oil in a pan.  Remove 200 gr Italian sausage from its skin and mash it up with a fork.  Add the sausage to the pan and brown it, stirring.  Add  a little white wine and a tablesp honey.  [The magazine recipe says Marsala but I'm not keen on its flavour.]  Also add a goodly dollop of 'strattu [tomato paste] diluted in a little homemade tomato sauce or water.  Stir everything so that the 'strattu dissolves. [The magazine recipe uses chopped tomatoes but, as regular readers know, I'm mad about 'strattu!] Add seasalt and black pepper to taste and reduce the sauce so that it it quite thick.

Turn the rice out onto a plate, pour the sauce around it, garnish as you like and serve.

A SUMMER FEAST

What a feast my friend Gina prepared for her friends on Friday evening!  We spent a lovely, convivial evening on her terrace by the sea and, after the feast, the women listened to the men discussing traditional jam-making methods!  Without further ado, I'll let you enjoy the food pictures:

There were antipasti of prawn salad, bresaola salad, anchovy salad [I can't touch the fish dishes because of an allergy but I'm sure they were delicious] and an elegant cold omelette filled with mayonnaise and ham:

Then there were sausages wrapped in pancetta, a baccalà [salt-cod] flan [ a recipe which Gina had invented and it did look good] and baked, stuffed onions:

There were contorni of beans, peppers and aubergines:

For dessert, Gina had made gel al limone,

Chiara and her mother, who always make perfect sponges, had created this one, filled with marmalade

and I took along semifreddo di limone, otherwise known as Jennifer Paterson's "Suffolk Lemon Pudding" from her book, Seasonal Receipts:

To go with the semifreddo, I had made Liz's pineapple shortbread, which was a great success with my Sicilian friends.  Thanks for the recipe , Liz.

E grazie per la bella cena, Gina.

ACQUA E ZAPPUDDA

"Acqua e zapudda fannu cipudda" - "Water and hoeing produce onions".

- Sicilian proverb

It must have taken a lot of both to produce this enormous specimen from the "onion town" of Giarratana.  I put a "normal"-sized onion beside it and photographed it in a basket with other oniony things to give you a better idea of its size:

I wonder how much I'll cry when I peel it?

FOODIE FRIDAY

Now that I start writing I realise that I haven't named this recipe so let's call it " Friday filled vegetables" unless you want to go all academic and remind me that the tomato is a fruit. I do think "filled" is a nicer word than "stuffed", don't you?

This is an adaptation of a recipe in June's La Cucina Italiana magazine but I think I have made enough changes to be able to publish it here. For one thing, their recipe uses anchovies and as I can't eat fish that is out. I have also used a different kind of cheese and used the ready-grated breadcrumbs we can get here instead of the soft pane pugliese suggested. Here we go:

8 - 10 good-sized, round tomatoes [but not beef tomatoes]
4 largeish onions [I've used our famous white, Giarratana onions]
200 gr pane grattato or fine, fresh breadcrumbs
50 gr olives preserved in oil, drained, stoned and chopped
50 gr sundried tomatoes in oil, drained and chopped [with a scissors]
100 gr lean minced beef or veal
2 teasp salted capers, rinsed and drained
1 clove garlic, peeled
handful mint and parsley, chopped
50 gr grated caciocavallo cheese
3 tablesp olive oil
seasalt and freshly ground black pepper

Peel the onions and cut out as much of the middles as you can. Trim the bottoms so that they will stand up. Put them into a pan of simmering water for 20 mins. Cut the top off each tomato and scoop out the pulp. Set the pulp and tops aside, separately. Heat the oil in a pan and add the breadcrumbs with the garlic clove. Stir the breadcrumbs around until they take on some colour and add the meat to the pan. Keep stirring till the meat has just browned. Remove and discard the garlic. Put the olives, sundried tomatoes, capers, mint and cheese in a large mixing bowl and add the meat and breadcrumbs mixture. Mix everything well together and season. Now sieve some of the tomato pulp over it and stir to bind. Use this mixture to stuff the tomatoes and onions. Oil the base of a ceramic baking dish and put the vegetables in. Drizzle with olive oil and cook at 180 C for 40 mins. Serve warm with salad. If you like, you can put the tomato caps back on to serve. I forgot.

XMAS SALAD

A man for whom I used to make this salad in the UK dubbed it my "Xmas salad" because of the colours. I make it here whenever I can find feta cheese and have just discovered that it goes very well with the olive bread from yesterday. You need:

Some well-flavoured cherry tomatoes, halved
Some cubes of fresh feta
1 green pepper, roughly chopped or sliced into strips
half a red onion, roughly chopped or sliced

The green pepper I used today was so sun-ripened that it was turning purple, which I thought was pretty. I couldn't get a red onion, so used a white one. I also added some fresh marjoram, just because I had some on the balcony. Mix all the above ingredients together in a bowl, cover with clingfilm and chill.

Make a dressing from:
2 tablesp olive oil
finely grated zest and juice of half a lemon
a little dried oregano
fine seasalt and freshly ground black pepper

When you are ready to serve, pour the dressing over the salad and toss lightly.



There you are - "Xmas salad". What recipe could be more appropriate on 3rd June?

FOODIE FRIDAY - CIPOLLATA

Not a version of Britain's favourite breakfast sausage although, interestingly, the etymology is connected: records dating back at least 400 years point to an Italian onion stew known as cipollata [the ci is pronounced like a ch and cipolla is the general word for onion]. On high days and holidays, sausages may have been added to the stew [meat was a luxury until quite recently] and "chipolata" is probably a corruption of cipollata.

This afternoon I found these in the supermarket: just onions wrapped in pancetta to resemble sausages [here we can get onions which look like large spring onions] but very effective, and easy to copy at home.

Cooked, I thought they looked rather stunning as part of an antipasti platter. You could use whatever other Italian antipasto food you like or have to hand. [On the left I've got rolled-up slices of Italian lard, which is a refined sort of bacon.]

Buon appetito.

GINA'S NEW YEAR FEAST

A wonderful lunch yesterday at Gina's. I'll take you straight to the food:



First, there was her famous dish of tagliatelle al forno, this time made for 15 people and even more delicious and crispy as it was cooked in a wood-burning oven.



Next, the main courses: polpettone of minced meat, omelette mixture and chard



and cotolette of chicken and veal



and good old Italian salsiccia



accompanied by orange salad



and peperoni



and cipolline in agrodolce [little sweet and sour onions].

There was also a green salad plus patate al forno or "Gina's chips". She cooks them in the oven in olive oil and rosemary. I remember the first time she served them when I was there some years ago and everybody wanted some. "But I've only done them for the children", she cried. "Ma noi siamo bambini!" ["But we're children!"] came the reply from all the adults present. She now makes plenty but yesterday they disappeared before I could snap them!



For dessert there were just-picked mandarins and oranges so sweet that they are called "vanilla oranges" here. Yes, they really do taste of vanilla!



Then there was gel al limone [newer readers might like to know that the recipe is here],



then these dolci



and of course, panettone.

Grazie, Gina!

And those of you who've read to the end get Gina's recipe for the sweet and sour onions:
Peel some very small onions and wash them well. Sprinkle some flour over them and fry them in a little olive oil. Then add some white wine vinegar to the pan [about a tablespoon to a half kilo of onions] with some salt, black pepper and sugar [about a dessertspoon of sugar, I would say]. Cook over a low flame for 15 minutes. Buon appetito.

AN ITALIAN CURE

Well, I've tried everything else in my efforts to get rid of this 'flu so at lunch time I made this red onion soup, which has worked for me before. The use of butter instead of oil indicates the northern Italian provenance of this recipe:

Red onion soup

4 oz unsalted butter
1.5 lbs red onions, sliced thinly
2 cloves pink garlic, finely chopped [not an authentic addition, but I felt I needed it]
0.75 pint good vegetable stock
chopped fresh herbs - thyme, rosemary, sage
coarse seasalt and freshly ground black pepper
2 slices hard, Italian bread per person


Melt the butter in a heavy pan and add the onions and garlic. You want them to sort of melt into the butter but not brown, so put the lid on and let them cook over a low heat for c. 15 minutes, stirring once. When the onions are soft, add the stock, herbs and seasoning, put the lid back on and simmer for another 15 mins. Towards the end of this time, toast the bread and butter it and put 2 slices in the bottom of each soup bowl. Pour the soup over and serve. Sprinkle with parmesan or not, as you prefer. These quantities will serve 2 generously.


My head already feels clearer!

A SIMPLE LUNCH

I usually char peppers to make a contorno salad myself, but sometimes you find them ready-roasted in a greengrocer's, as I did, along with these roasted onions, yesterday. The smell indicated that they had been roasted in a wood-burning oven so I bought some. I quite like to eat the peppers as they are, but to make a salad from them you rub the skin off with your fingers, discarding the seeds if there are too many or they bother you. Then cut the peppers into strips - I use a scissors - put them in a dish and dress them with salt and olive oil, plus oregano, basil and a little paprika if you wish. You could also add capers.

You need the elongated peppers if you are charring the skin yourself: I have never had much success trying to do it with bell peppers and I find it much easier to use a ridged griddle pan for the job than the oven. I have never seen an Italian put them in a plastic bag or wrap them in a tea towel to loosen the skin after charring; if you have the right type of peppers and the skin is sufficiently blistered, it will come off easily once they are cool enough to handle.

A little salame, a contorno of dressed peppers, a tomato salad, some of the roasted onion [which tastes surprisingly sweet] and a little good, hard, Sicilian bread make a simple but appetising lunch.

PLEASED WITH MYSELF

At lunchtime today I decided to use my giant white Giarratana onions to attempt cipolle ripiene [baked, stuffed onions], a popular dish all over the south of Italy. I am pleased because it turned out rather better than I expected, considering that I cobbled together ideas from Carluccio, Lorenza de' Medici and Elizabeth David and guessed the quantities: Both Lorenza and ED tell you to boil the onions [peeled, says Lorenza, unpeeled says ED] for 15 minutes first, but Carluccio doesn't, as he is using red onions which don't need to be peeled. I should think the purpose of boiling them is to tenderise them, though, not to make the peeling easier. Given the size of these particular onions, I decided that it would be best to do the boiling, then, once they were cool enough to handle, I peeled them [not that there was much skin on these] cut the tops off and hollowed out the centre as best I could. [OK, I broke a bit off the edge of the one on the left but I'm not Nigella or Saint Delia!] Then the fun bit: following the suggestions of all 3 cooks, I made a stuffing mixture from grated parmigiano and pecorino, breadcrumbs [the fine pane grattugiato that we can buy in packets here; in Britain you could use wholemeal breadcrumbs but do make them yourself from day-old bread - don't use those dry breadcrumbs that you can buy there] capers [always use salted ones if you can] chopped black olives, a little chopped, cooked ham, chopped basil and parsley and of course seasoning. I used eggs and olive oil to bind the mixture together. ED adds anchovies , in which case you would leave the salt out, but as I am allergic to any sort of fish that was not a possibility for me. Then I drizzled olive oil over and baked them in an oiled roasting dish at 200 C for 30 minutes. You can, of course, use smaller onions and I should think red ones would look very pretty.

In the top picture they are ready to go in the oven, in the second one they have just come out, in the third I have just cut one and I wanted to show you the texture of the pane grattugiato. You wouldn't need to get your breadcrumbs anywhere near as fine as this so don't worry!